


In These Pages

by significantowl



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Flash Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Mistletoe, Post-Defenders, Post-Season/Series 01, Post-Season/Series 02, Praise Kink, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-02 22:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 10,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5265461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets and snippets from <a href="http://significantowl.tumblr.com">my tumblr</a>.</p><p><b>17. Got You Something (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)</b><br/>16. On the Job (Matt/Elektra, professional thief AU)<br/>15. This Life, and the One Before (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)<br/>14. Senses Tell (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)<br/>13. Protective Custody (Matt/Foggy, missing scene, Defenders spoilers)<br/>12. Breakfast Knows No Hour (Matt & Foggy, law school, weekend do-over)<br/>11. Isle (Matt/Claire, morning after)<br/>10. For Gifts (Matt & Foggy, future fic, bows)<br/>[...]<br/>1. Full Contents</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Contents

1\. Contents  
2\. I Wanna Be Adored (Matt/Foggy, praise kink, 5 minute fic)  
3\. Love Like Copper (Matt/the people he loves)  
4\. We Have a Generous Sick Leave Policy (Matt & Foggy & Karen, slight Matt/Karen)  
5\. There's Tonight (Matt & Karen, conversations in a church)  
6\. Matt Murdock: Totally Fine (Matt & Foggy, h/c, Matt has laryngitis)  
7\. 103° (Matt & Claire, sickfic)  
8\. Better Plans Have Been Made (Matt & Foggy, five sentence fic)  
9\. The Way to Make It Last (Matt/Foggy, post s1, mistletoe)  
10\. For Gifts (Matt & Foggy, future fic, bows)  
11\. Isle (Matt/Claire, morning after)  
12\. Breakfast Knows No Hour (Matt & Foggy, law school, weekend do-over)  
13\. Protective Custody (Matt/Foggy, missing scene, Defenders spoilers)  
14\. Senses Tell (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)  
15\. This Life, and the One Before (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)  
16\. On the Job (Matt/Elektra, professional thief AU)  
17\. Got You Something (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)  



	2. I Wanna Be Adored (Matt/Foggy)

It’s not a lie, because Foggy believes it’s true.

“So good, Matt,” he says, dragging the pad of his thumb up Matt’s cock. His heartbeat echoes _good, good, good_ , and Matt twists his fingers in the sheets, heels digging deep.

He hasn’t come, because Foggy said _wait._ He isn’t good, not down deep, where thought meets desire, he’s something else entirely - 

_(he wants to flip them over, hold Foggy’s shoulders to the bed, rut and kiss and bite and hear Foggy sob)_

\- but Matt is always striving, always trying, and where there’s a goal he’ll give all he has to reach it.

 _Good, good, good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a five minute fic meme on tumblr - although, full confession, I didn't start the timer until I had the beginning and ending in mind, and I did a few minutes' fiddling after it stopped. :-)


	3. Love Like Copper (Matt/the people he loves)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Matt Murdock Appreciation Week on Tumblr, Day Two: Favorite Relationship || Writing Prompt: Firsts/Lasts. Matt, and the people he loves.

In the night, love tastes like copper on his tongue, slides slick and warm down the back of his throat. It’s pure. Elemental.

_(He bled for Karen before he even really knew her. When he thinks of that it pleases him: a matter of record, incontrovertible. A steady, honest flame that can never be doused.)_

By day, love tastes like hot bitter coffee gracing the corner of his desk just when he needs it most, or veggie banh mi from the organic sandwich place Foggy goes blocks out of his way for just for Matt. It's complicated, shifting, changing. Sweetness to spice, subtle to intense.

Sometimes it's too much too handle. Sometimes Matt swallows, and swallows, and swallows, and wonders how other people keep it down.

_(Claire bled for him. The wrongness of that burns cold.)_

Love is an action. At night it blooms wet across his knuckles, runs down his wrists. Sometimes it flows like sacrifice. Sometimes like vengeance. When Matt can't tell the difference with his head or with his hands, he searches for it on his knees.

_(He hasn’t been called on to bleed for Foggy. Not yet. But that time will come, he knows it will, and when it does -_

_Love will be so simple. Straightforward and true._

_It will consume everything.)_


	4. We Have a Generous Sick Leave Policy (Matt & Foggy & Karen, slight Matt/Karen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Matt Murdock Appreciation Week on tumblr, Day Three: Tropes. I went with sick!fic. (Matt & Foggy & Karen, slight Matt/Karen.)

“She coughed! No, Matt, stay in there, didn't you hear me? Karen coughed!” Foggy’s pressing a hand to Matt’s chest, keeping him pinned in the doorway of his office.

“I heard you. And I heard her. Hi, Karen. How are you feeling this morning?”

“Stay _back_ ,” Foggy insists.

“What the hell is happening,” Karen says. Yes, she’d coughed, and yes, she was a little congested, but she felt well enough to work and there was plenty of work to do. She’d expected Foggy’s reaction to be more like _Aw, Karen, keep your germs at your own desk!_ and less like the start of quarantine procedures for a bubonic plague victim.

“ _Why_ would you come to work sick, Karen?” Foggy’s got his beseeching face on. She’s trying hard not to crack a smile; even without the visual, Matt’s given in, grin splitting his face as he stands patiently in place with Foggy’s hand splayed over his heart.

“It’s just a little cold. I’ll stay in there at my desk, and you and your,” she waves a hand to indicate _whatever this is_ , “can stay at yours, and everything will be fine.”

“Her voice was a half-register lower than normal yesterday,” Matt says. “Surprised you didn’t notice, Foggy.”

“Oh my God,” Foggy wails. “Oh my _God_.” He closes his eyes, clearly collecting himself. “All right, here’s the plan. You’re in there, Murdock -” Matt raises his hands in surrender, and allows himself to be pushed all the way through the office door, which then firmly closes in his face. “I’m going to see if I can charm our friends across the hall out of any cans of Lysol they might have, and _you_ , Karen, you are going to go home, think about what you’ve done, and decide what your role is going to be when this all comes to its inevitable conclusion.”

“What?”

“Are you going to hold Matt down,” Foggy clarifies, “or are you going to throw the pills down his throat, because when he gets this it’s gonna take both of us, Page, don’t doubt it for an instant.”

“If he gets it. _If_.” She’s been fighting a smile again, but it suddenly disappears, leaving something cold in its place. “Oh. Is, is he -” 

Could an eyeful of chemicals fuck up a kid’s immune system for life? They were radioactive chemicals. She supposed they could do anything.

“You’re scaring her. You’re making her feel guilty.” Matt is, as usual, shit at doing what he’s told; he’s materialized beside them again, and is shooting a gentle smile in her direction.

“Yeah, and tell me the last thing you need right now isn’t a cough, buddy.”

The fingers of Matt’s left hand drift up to his ribs, almost absently, before he forces them back down to his side. “Karen.” He reaches out with his other hand and finds her elbow, then draws himself close to her. She can’t see Foggy anymore, it’s too hard to look at anything but Matt’s face, but she’s sure he’s going apoplectic. “Go home, get some rest, spare Foggy’s blood pressure, and remember that whatever happens to me,” he presses a kiss over her eyebrow, soft and warm, and her heart flutters, “is my choice.”


	5. There's Tonight (Matt & Karen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's Karen who's followed him here._ Written for Karedevil Week on tumblr, Day Seven: Free Choice.

It’s Karen who’s followed him here. He knows by the sharp _click-click_ of her heels and the soft, sweet honeysuckle of her perfume. Matt listens as she crosses the nave, her steps unhesitating and precise, and thinks about sitting up straighter in the pew. In the end, he doesn't put the energy into it.

She followed him. She gets what she gets.

There’s a warm rush of air as she slides in beside him. He chose the wrong side of the aisle. That heavy swollenness to his cheek, that hot sting at the corner of his mouth - he's giving her his worst side right now, when he could've kept it towards the wall, in shadow. These aren't the first knocks Karen's seen on him since Nobu, but they're probably some of the ugliest. She's had all day to look her fill back at the office, but her heartbeat says distraction. Says distress.

It doesn't slow her down any, though. She doesn't open with niceties, there's no hello. Instead it’s, “I have a question.”

“So you followed me.”

Matt hears her hair slide like water over her shoulders as they rise and fall. He hears the sigh in her voice when she speaks. “I had this idea,” she says. “I thought maybe you’d be more likely to tell me the truth in a church.”

He tips his head back, feels the vastness of space around him, the whispers of air moving high in the rafters. “Karen, I can lie anywhere.”

There’s that waterfall shrug of hers again. “Let’s see you, then.”

Matt lifts his chin. _Your shot._

“If you’re so clumsy,” Karen begins, “if you get hurt like this because you’re so careless -” her finger trails through the air above his cheek - “then how come I have never, not once, seen you fall?”

_We’re not together 24/7, Karen. Sometimes I drink, Karen, I get clumsy. I’m disoriented when I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, that’s all. I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?_

There’s an altar fifty paces to the north. There’s a cross hanging above it. There’s a space in his life that he actually hasn’t lied in, not in a long, long time, and the lie he remembers best is the most damning one of all. ( _I do forgive them, Father, the men who killed my dad. God wants me to and I do._ )

There’s her. Too sharp, too clever, too close. Too right. 

There's tonight.

Matt says, “You’ve seen me fall before. Four, five stories. I landed in the rain. You should’ve stayed away, Karen you've got - you've _got_ to learn to stay away, but you came downstairs. You thought I was dead. You, you were afraid someone else had died for you.”

Her laugh is unsteady. Hurt. She says, “You can lie better than this.”

Push on. You're doing it, push on. “My mouth was full of blood. It dripped down onto the pavement. Heavier than the rain. Thicker. You probably didn’t see that. Sorry, I just, I taste rain and blood when I - that’s that night. Anyway. I got up. I got to work.”

Her heart is the D train, coming in fast. She believes him, she doesn't believe him, he doesn't know. 

She wants to, he thinks.

Matt pushes himself to his feet. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, the knocks his body’s taken that she can't see are worse than the ones she can. For a long moment he stands with his hand reaching out into empty air; finally she takes it, and stands with him.

“Ah, confessional’s over there,” he says quietly, and beneath her heart and her breath listens to the shape of his words as they fall from his lips to land on her ear. “Come with me. Ask me again.”

She nods, throat hitching as she swallows down words. Saving them for the booth, Matt thinks. Where they’ll land the best.

He leads the way. He leaves his cane behind.


	6. Matt Murdock: Totally Fine (Matt & Foggy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a sickfic hurt/comfort meme on tumblr, prompt: "I know something that might help. Just trust me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Capriccio ♥

“I know something that might help,” Foggy says, the instant the office door closes behind Karen. “Just sit there. Trust me.”

Karen’s heels patter down the hallway, the stairs; Foggy heads into their kitchenette. He runs water from the sink - into a bowl, Matt thinks, not a glass, based on the curvature of the echo - and opens the door of the microwave. There's no reason to get up. There's nothing to be gained by listening to Foggy’s movements from three feet away as opposed to ten. Matt's tired. His head hurts. Every part of it.

The legs of his chair scrape back against the bare floor. He stands. 

“Right, obviously I should've said run, flee, get away,” Foggy says over the hum of the microwave, “because then you would've stayed put.” There's a pause. The bowl - ceramic - rattles against the turntable. The water sizzles and pops. “Okay, it's a lot more disconcerting not getting mouthed back at than I thought it would be. In case you were wondering.”

Matt smiles at that, and the little grumble Foggy makes suggests he saw it. Matt’s made it to the kitchen doorway now, and he rests his shoulder against it. He hasn’t quite figured out what Foggy’s up to - if it were a mug in the microwave, he’d say brewing a cup of tea, but it’s not. Plus Foggy’s been heating that water for a pretty long time, too. 

“Go settle somewhere, Murdock. If the conference table wasn’t doing it for you, go try your desk. Or my desk, hell, I’m really not picky. Shoo.”

If something water-related is about to happen, he’s definitely choosing Foggy’s desk over his own. Let _Foggy’s_ papers and laptop run the risk. The chair still holds lingering traces of Foggy’s warmth when Matt sinks down into it; of course, Foggy’d been sitting in it for hours, working at his desk until their asshole of a witness had stuck his head out of the conference room and yelled, “Does someone else want to finish up in here? Because I don’t think this guy’s gonna make it,” which, as it turned out, was not a turn of phrase Foggy was well-equipped to handle these days.

Matt hadn’t been able to reassure Foggy at that point. His voice had been too far gone. Foggy’s panicked heartbeat, the crash of his footsteps as he burst into the conference room - Matt will hear them again. At night, just before he sleeps.

They'd reached an understanding after a confused few minutes, during which Foggy’s hands had fluttered all over Matt, touching his hands and face, then patting his sides beneath his suit jacket, presumably checking for blood. Karen had sent the witness packing. She’d come back into the room with her purse bumping heavy against her side, saying, “Which do you like best, Matt? One finger for cherry flavor, two for lemon,” but the only honest answer had been a shrug.

“He hates everything the pharmaceutical industry has to offer,” Foggy had said wearily. And any minute now, Matt assumes she’ll be back from the drugstore with a dozen things to prove him right.

“Here we go.” Foggy sets the bowl of water on the desk in front of Matt. There’s steam rising from it, sending gentle curls of warmth into the air. “Grade A New York City tap water, only the finest. Put your head right over it.” When Matt doesn't move immediately, Foggy steers him, fingers spread wide against his scalp. “Now for step two.”

Step two involves a kitchen towel. It's clean, at least, or as clean as can be hoped for, smelling mostly of the chemical sweetness of detergent and the mustiness of old wood from the drawer it's been stored in, and only faintly of hand soap and stale coffee grinds. Foggy drapes it over Matt's head, enveloping him in a warm tent filled with trapped steam.

“Deep breaths,” Foggy says, standing close at his back. “Nice and slow. Wait, wait, forget every word of that! Hold your breath, that's what I should've said. Want to see you turn purple, buddy.” 

Matt tries to huff - to laugh - but what comes out is a raspy, splintered cough that doesn't do his throat any favors. So he breathes.

It's good. Each inhale pulls in heat and moisture, sliding over the dry raw places in his throat. It's not a rainstorm in the desert, it's better, it's a slow, gentle easing, something he can adjust to without the ground slipping away beneath him.

Foggy's hand has settled on the back of his neck, heavy and warm and soothing. Between the throbbing at his temples and the fire in his throat, Matt hadn't realized just how much tension he was carrying at the base of his skull, but he can feel it melting gradually into the heat of Foggy's skin. It's good, too.

Matt props his elbows on the table. Dips his head a little lower, closer to the surface of the water, and laces his fingers together behind his head. A hitch in Foggy's breath says he's pleased.

His shoulders rise and fall. His chest fills and contracts. Foggy was right: it helps. He likes the simplicity of it, heat and water and air. He likes that lifting his head is all it would take to make it stop. He likes the control.

“So, I'm trying to construct a scenario,” Foggy says. “You woke up sick this morning. You got dressed, came in to work, small-talked me and Karen, met Mr. Bustamante, and basically proceeded to carry out a star turn in a one-man production of _Matt Murdock: Totally Fine_ until you fell off the stage completely. Or. You're not sick, but somewhere between leaving this office at six last night and walking in at nine this morning, you put your vocal cords through enough stress to damage them. And I'm having a hard time imagining anything fun being involved, like screamy sex or marathon karaoke.” Foggy pauses, fingers trembling slightly against Matt's skin. “Can I get a sign here? Scenario one or scenario two?”

Maybe Foggy’s disconcerted by Matt's lack of speech, but right now Matt doesn't have a problem with it. He doesn't have to push his way through a mire of apologies or justifications. All he has to do is hold up a finger. _One._

Foggy exhales. “Okay, I'm glad to hear it,” he says. “Or not _hear_ it -” a finger prods Matt between the shoulder blades, forestalling a joke that Matt could pretty much only get across via eyebrow raise at the moment anyway. “But now I'm obligated to say this. Most people _stop talking_ when they think they’re losing their voice! They don’t take three hour depositions that their legal partners are perfectly capable of doing instead.”

Nothing to do but breathe and wait for Foggy to figure it out. Mr. Bustamante was a lying piece of shit, and Matt had been pushing, pushing, looking for the right question that would lead to the right lie, one that could be easily disproven in court and show the man's testimony for the creative fiction it was.

Sure enough, Foggy gets it. “There are ways we can work together on this human lie detector business, you know. Secret signals. Tell me we don't have what it takes to dominate the world of clandestine communication.”

Foggy likes helping people and winning cases. Foggy doesn't like invasions of privacy. At best, Matt expected a sigh of resignation; at worst, to feel that warmth drop away from his neck. Instead, it spreads through his chest. He reaches back for Foggy’s elbow and squeezes. 

And turns that into a purposeful series of taps - _no more lie detector talk_ \- when he hears footsteps in the hall. “What, buddy? Oh, oh, I get it, Karen's coming. See,” Foggy says, with great satisfaction. “We already got this.”

Karen _does_ have a dozen things rattling around in a shopping bag. Maybe more. Matt's got to inventory them all and reimburse her before Foggy tries to. He's so caught up in that - the smell of cough syrup (multiple bottles), the rustling of throat lozenges wrapped in paper (multiple bags), the rattle-shake of a bottle of aspirin - that he almost misses it when Foggy leans down and whispers, “And you get why you deserve what's about to happen next, right?”

The office door opens. Fleetingly, Matt thinks that the window would open pretty easily, too.

“He's got three more minutes under here, Karen,” Foggy announces, sending his voice carrying into the outer office. “After that -” Foggy's hand squeezes the back of Matt's neck - _stay put_ \- or is it _run, flee, get away?_ \- “he's all yours.”


	7. 103° (Matt & Claire, sickfic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a sickfic hurt/comfort meme on tumblr, prompt: "How am I supposed to take your temperature if you won't come out from under there?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really think this is spoilery for s2, but be aware that I've seen it, just in case?

The pad-pad of rubber soles in a hallway. The thud of a basketball on concrete in an empty lot. The bubbling of marinara sauce on a neighbor's stove. The snick of a key in a lock.

His lock.

Breath in lungs and blood in veins and the grinding drag of a zipper and the clink of glass against short fingernails -

A familiar sigh. 

“Matt. Don't make this harder than it has to be.” Something - a bag, her medical bag - drops at the foot of his bed. “You know I'm here, and I bet you know what I have in my hand, too. How am I supposed to take your temperature if you won't come out from under there?”

Since Matt hadn’t asked Claire to take his temperature, and didn't particularly _want_ Claire to take his temperature, it was hard not to take that as a win-win. Except. 

How had she known?

“Foggy?” he croaked, trusting the word to filter up through the mountain of blankets above him.

“You got it. Called and told me you'd left early today for an appointment -” Matt doesn't even have to sense the finger quotes through disturbances in the air, her voice signals them loud and clear - “And that you were looking feverish. When I tried to get more out of him, he said, ‘Attractively feverish. Like a sick person on a sitcom, not on a medical drama.’”

Does he have to feel guilty for tissue-paper lies? Everyone knew they were see-through. “You came because I'm attractive?”

“I came because that boy worries about you enough as it is, and apparently he's stuck down at the courthouse. Worrying. Can I just get a number for him, please?”

Matt uncurls his fingers from the blankets so that he's no longer pinning them tightly against himself. He leaves it for Claire to drag them away. She does it with a quick, efficient jerk.

Her intake of breath is sharp, and she holds it for a moment before she speaks. “Either we have different definitions of attractive, or you've gotten worse since you left him. Open up.”

He tries not to gag at the metallic tang as the cold thermometer slides into his mouth. “I thought you were under there for the chills,” Claire says. She's holding the end of the thermometer. She doesn't trust him not to spit it out. “But look at you, you're boiling. Some new punishment routine of yours?”

He can either talk or get his temperature taken, she knows that. He lifts his eyebrows. Claire says, “Yeah, sure, you've got ten more seconds to think of your answer,” then counts them down.

“Loud,” Matt says the moment she draws the thermometer out. He smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth in a futile attempt to dissipate the taste.

“Right, the bat ears. Headache?”

“Bat ears,” Matt protests. Then, “Sure, yeah. Little.”

“You own a pair of headphones?”

“Mm.” He rolls his head to one side and presses an ear to his pillow. Pulls the corner of it against the other. “Blankets were easier to find.”

“Okay, but we need to bring your temperature down, not up. I don’t know how long you’ve been sweating under there, but you’re well on the road to dehydration.” Her thumbs are tapping away; her voice is distracted. She’s texting Foggy.

“You telling him all that?”

That sigh again. Matt loves it, has done since the very first night. It’s frustration, but it’s also acceptance. It doesn’t change. It’s beautiful. “I’m telling him the number.”

“He gets to know it and I don’t?”

His smile must give him away; this time, the sigh he's provoked turns quickly into a soft huff of a laugh. Joke’s on her, though, because he loves that too. “103. Figured with your whole -” she’s waving her hands over him, little flutters of air that translate as _everything_ \- “you already knew.”

A horn blares two blocks away. His wince is unavoidable, and Claire obviously catches it; she says, “Headphones. Want me to go on a scavenger hunt?”

Wants. His are as simple and as complicated as the touch of her fingertips to his cheek, or the press of her lips to his forehead. Matt shrugs.

“Gym bag?”

“Yeah. But -”

“But?”

“Better - Foggy.” Matt presses his own hot hand to the center of his forehead, organizes his thoughts. “Bought me a better pair in college. Big ones. Closet, maybe.”

Claire moves away from the bed. Matt hears the slight creak of her bones, the shift of her cartilage, the sway of her hips. He wants to listen and he doesn't want to. His skull’s in a vise.

“Damn,” he hears her say under her breath. “You should be an expert on one of those home organization shows. Want come do my closet?”

“Hope all your clothes are the same color,” Matt says, waiting till she's close to him again to speak, not wanting to raise his voice even the little it would take to cross the room. And then she runs her fingers through his sweaty hair, pushing it back, and slides the headphones with their large foam earpieces over his head, and it's better. Everything's better.

“Now we need to get some water in you.” With the headphones on, Claire's voice is a little softer, but clearer, too, with a little less distraction from the rest of the world. Her thumb drags gently beneath his chin. “You gonna fight me on this?”

He’s not.

Creak, shift, sway, she's gone, and when she comes back there’s a glass in her hands, condensation sending rivulets crawling down the sides. 

“Let's sit you up, so you don't choke -” Claire joins him on the bed, tucking one leg beneath her, and when she pats at his shoulder Matt drags himself up to prop against the headboard. “Good. Have I ever told you I like you best when you cooperate?”

Matt’s grinning as he reaches for the glass. When Claire bats his fingers away, he knows she’s seen them tremble. “Not true,” he says. “What you like best is a challenge.”

“Yeah, yeah, less talking,” Claire says, cupping his head with one steady hand. She tips the glass with his lips to the other, feeding him small sips when he’s tempted to grab the thing and chug the blessedly cool water down. 

When it's gone, and Matt’s licked the last drop from his lips, he says, “Thanks. Claire. You should - you should go.”

“Oh, we’re going to start listing things we think the other person should do?” A bright ringing sound underscores her words as the glass settles on his night table. He’d flinch, if it weren’t for the headphones; as it is, his shoulders jerk up reflexively. She adds, “Better get comfortable. This could take awhile.”

“Claire… I know you’re busy.”

“Yeah, well. You know I like making decisions for myself, too.”

He laughs a little, twitches his lips for a smile. “Okay, but let me ask you a question: what if I fall asleep on you?”

“You, asleep and out of danger?” Claire’s shifting, settling on his bed, dragging a pillow behind her back. Her shoes hit the floor, one thud at a time. “That would be a _delight._ ”

Slipping back down to lie on his pillow feels good; rolling until his head lands in her lap, tucked against her thigh, feels even better. Claire’s fingers coast through his hair, drag over the nape of his neck, rub high over his cheek. “Boy, don’t you toy with me now,” she whispers, and Matt laughs and lets his eyes fall shut.


	8. Better Plans Have Been Made (Matt & Foggy, five sentence fic)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For shinykari's prompt in a "give me a sentence, I'll write the next five" meme: _In retrospect, following a mugger into the New York City sewer system was not Matt's best plan._

In retrospect, following a mugger into the New York City sewer system was not Matt’s best plan. But Matt was angry, and things like this happened when he was angry: blood in his mouth, worse things soaking down into his boots, pain in his ribs, and a _smell_ attacking his nose, hanging in the back of his throat, and seeping mercilessly into every single one of his pores. 

“Yes, I fell into a sewer. Yes, you can tease me about this for the rest of our lives,” Matt says, standing suited-and-booted in Foggy’s shower, helmet left on the edge of Foggy’s sink, while Foggy aims the detachable sprayer at all the crevices of the Daredevil suit, chortling about _hosing down the terror of the night_.

“I think that’s Batman,” Matt says. Foggy just hums and works a little of his own shampoo into Matt’s hair, citrusy and bright, a layer of sweetness to help mask the stench; hums, and tries to wash everything Matt hates away.


	9. The Way to Make It Last (Matt/Foggy, mistletoe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post s1. For a prompt of "mistletoe kiss."

“It’s festive,” Foggy says, climbing down from the step stool, hammer in hand. “Don't you want Nelson and Murdock to be festive, Karen?”

Foggy does. Foggy is all _about_ festivity. That's his story and he’s sticking to it.

He’s been busy; little bundles of mistletoe are affixed firmly to the crown molding above the main entryway, his and Matt’s office doors, the kitchen doorway, and a few odd corners besides. They’re the real thing, glossy green leaves, waxy white berries, the works. 

Karen squints up at his handiwork. “So… I’m guessing the normal rules don’t apply? With Matt?” Her casualness is poorly, poorly, faked, and when Foggy doesn’t respond right away, she adds, fluttering a hand, “I mean….” 

“You better ask him. He likes a little danger in his life.” Foggy pitches his voice to reach the shadow he can see through the frosted glass of the office door - not that any pitching is actually necessary. “Don’t you, Matt?”

“Ah, what’s that?” Matt enters, propping his cane in the corner, untwining a scarf. His nose and ears are pink from the cold, and a bruise on his cheek is purpling. A fist? A blunt instrument? The icy sidewalk? Foggy would’ve only considered one of those options, before.

“Mistletoe. You in or out?”

“Oh, in. Sure. Just - give me a tour first?”

Matt's already heading Foggy's way, hand outstretched. When he clamps down on Foggy's arm, it's, “Jesus, Murdock, like being stabbed by five individual icicles.” But his grin is fireside-warm in comparison, and the (superfluous, purely for Karen's benefit) tour takes barely more than a minute.

“Is it real or fake?” Matt asks, with their circuit of the office complete.

“Real.” Foggy throws out an arm , grandly. “Bringing the forest to you, one parasitic plant at a time.”

“Toxins and all.”

“Hey, it's not poisonous if you don’t eat it!” Foggy looks at Karen, who’s laughing softly, hand covering her mouth. “It’s fine. This isn't a poisoning-my-partner-for-the-insurance money scheme. He won’t eat it.”

“What insurance,” Matt says, with a laugh even warmer than his grin. And, okay, a lot of things are complicated in these post-near-death-by-ninja-fishhook days, and there are too many times when Foggy doesn’t even know how he _wants_ to react to Matt, but with that laugh, things are easy. Foggy doesn't know how not to bask in its glow.

“Karen? Is that - is that all of the mistletoe? Foggy isn’t holding out on me, is he?”

“Not unless he’s literally got some up his sleeve,” Karen says. She giggles when Matt and his icicle fingers launch into pat-down mode, and even harder when Foggy swats them away, making well-reasoned accusations of assault that sound nothing like yelps at all.

+

Foggy leaves the office for coffee. He leaves for last minute Christmas shopping. He leaves for vague meetings with imaginary clients, spending practically more time out of the office than in it, and not once over the next few days does he come back in to find Karen and Matt locking lips under the mistletoe.

He'd sort of thought… well, he'd actually sort of blotted out all thought while buying the damn things in the first place, snapping them up from a corner Christmas tree lot on his way in to work one morning, but as he’d walked on, festive greenery in hand, he'd decided that what he’d just done was buy a Christmas gift. For Karen. Or Matt. Or both.

He was pretty sure Karen had feelings running straight in Matt's direction, and if Matt had any heading back her way, then Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, enjoy your cliched opening for taking feelings out for a spin, Murdock and Page.

+

Mistletoe smells nothing like Foggy's mom's Yankee Candle by the same name. _That_ smells like burying your face in a fir tree. Mistletoe doesn’t smell like much at all, even when Foggy punctures a leaf and then a berry to get at the juices inside. (He washes his hands thoroughly afterward with soap from a snowman-shaped dispenser that Karen brought in to do her part “in aid of the festive cause.”) 

But it has to smell like something to Matt, which means Matt has to be aware of where it is at all times, which means that if Matt's ignoring it….

+

Hell if Foggy knows what goes on in the mind of Matt Murdock.

+

The day before Christmas Eve, Foggy returns to Nelson and Murdock with three holiday-themed coffees in hand (Bad Elf, Reindeer Run, and Midnight Clear - Matt is _definitely_ getting Bad Elf), to find Matt standing just inside the door of his office, all alone.

“Where's Karen?”

“Karen? Karen's out getting coffee.”

“ _I_ got coffee,” Foggy says, dropping Midnight Clear off on Karen’s desk. Vanilla and sweet honey waft up, gently.

“She's getting different coffee?” 

“Right.” Foggy narrows his eyes at Matt, but it's apparently too minor a thing for Matt to detect, because he doesn't react in the slightest. Just keeps on standing there, head tipped, ear angled towards Foggy - 

Listening. 

Back in the pre-ninja days, Foggy never used to think about heartbeats all that much. Apart from generally wanting his to keep on going for as long as possible, and hoping the runaway train in his chest when he took too many stairs too fast was completely normal, they didn't exactly command a lot of space in his brain. And he was perfectly okay with that. 

Right now his heartbeat is stupidly, deafeningly aware of where Matt is standing, half a step away from a bundle of mistletoe. Not just standing - _lurking_. 

Waiting? 

Foggy clears his throat. Might as well say it, right? Matt can hear it on him anyway. Smell it, probably, sharp in his sweat. 

“Do you want this coffee, Matt?” 

One heartbeat, two, rapid as horses’ hooves. Three beats, four, Foggy doesn’t like this, being hyperaware of his own body sucks - 

Matt reaches out a hand. “Yes, please.” 

Crossing the room is exactly like buying the mistletoe: an exercise in doing without thinking. He certainly isn't indulging in wishes, or hopes, or fantasies of kisses in his mind; he's just walking forward. He's just stopping in front of Matt. He's just giving him a coffee. 

Doing without thinking. Maybe Foggy understands the mind of Matt Murdock better than he thought. 

As Matt takes the coffee, he grabs Foggy's arm with his other hand, fingers digging into his bicep. “You're standing under the mistletoe, right?” 

Of course he is, Matt led him straight to it. “You tell me.” 

There's a bite to the words, and Matt flinches, chin jerking. “Yes, I - look - you bought it.” Foggy's intake of breath must sound as harsh as it feels in his chest, because Matt scrambles to add, “I'm trying to. To play by your rules, here.” 

“Don't - do _not_ be an asshole right now, Matt,” Foggy says, even though there's a tremble on Matt's fingers where he's gripping Foggy’s jacket, and Foggy knows: when Matt can't keep his body still, it means something. 

Matt’s laugh is like a tree limb in winter, snapping under the weight of ice. “Foggy, Foggy. You brought in a forest of mistletoe and then you disappeared for days. Trust me, that's - I can't - I'm just, I'm - here,” Matt says, and he crosses the inches between them, fingers twisting in Foggy's sleeve, mouth hot and fierce as it meets Foggy's. God. Does Matt even know how to kiss without it feeling like a fight? 

But that's another sign. That this is something with meaning. This is something Matt's been holding onto for a while. 

Foggy's still got his own coffee in one hand, but the other’s free, and he cradles Matt's head, gentling him. His heartbeat is roaring in his ears - Matt's ears too, no doubt - and it's getting hard to think, with Matt's lips moving against his, with Matt's body pressed close to his. 

Not thinking has gotten him this far. Foggy’s going to give himself a moment to enjoy it. 

When Matt pulls back, his lips are shiny, his cheeks are pink, and his glasses are askew. Messing him up further feels far and away like the most attractive option, but Foggy takes a deep breath and forces himself to speak. “So mistletoe.” His voice is shaky. “That's what gets you going? So I should go back in time, decorate the shit out of our dorm room, huh?” 

Violent head-shaking ensues. Foggy's about to say, _Wow, flattering_ , when Matt says, voice cracking, “I couldn't… I didn't deserve to when you didn't know everything, Foggy.” 

“Oh, look, another argument against all the lying appears,” Foggy says. But there's no sting on it, not right now, when his thumb’s playing with the nape of Matt’s neck, and Matt's still holding onto Foggy's sleeve tight enough to turn his knuckles white. 

Foggy disentangles himself, just for a moment. Long enough to repossess Matt's coffee, and go drop both their drinks off on Karen's desk. Then he’s meeting Matt under the mistletoe again, and it makes his breath catch to see Matt waiting, a wide, silly smile on his face now, because one thing Foggy's figured out for sure in this insane new world they're living in is that he never wants to stop finding his way back to Matt. 

He laces his fingers in Matt's hair from the start. Takes the kiss slow, keeps it steady, because that's the way to make it last. 


	10. For Gifts (Matt & Foggy, bows)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere vaguely in the future. For Elliceluella: prompt "mattfoggy, bows."

There's a stack of empty boxes next to the coffee table, their weight precariously balanced. A small Christmas tree dropping needles on the table in the corner, its strands of lights sizzling and popping in Matt’s ears, still lit four days after Christmas. There are gifts scattered across the kitchen table, opened but as of yet unused, and their idleness is a sudden note of discord in Matt’s perception, like a church bell rung out of turn.

“This place is a mess.”

“Is it?” Foggy’s tone is unconcerned, and his heartbeat, rising up lazily from where he’s sprawled on Matt’s couch, is a perfect match for it. Together, they only serve to wind Matt tighter. Put him on his way to places he doesn't entirely mean to go. 

“Yes. It is.” 

“Mm.” Foggy stretches; a blanket shifts over his legs. Probably had been dozing while Matt was in the shower. “It's bad luck to do any cleaning between Christmas and New Year's Day.”

“Yeah, pretty sure that's not how it goes.” Matt thrusts the object in his hand in Foggy’s direction. “Found this in the bathroom.”

“A gift bow? Kinda crushed, did you find it with your foot?”

“No. When I picked up your wet towel.” 

Foggy sits up slowly, his feet landing softly on the floor. He's catching on to Matt's mood, clearly, and his voice is deliberately even when he says, “I hung that on the rack.”

“Yeah. I know. It slid off, took mine with it.”

A long, controlled breath, then: “It's ten o’clock at night, Matt. Is that what you want to do, you want to clean?”

They could. Take down the tree - the one Foggy had stacked their presents under, in the days before Christmas - and toss out the empty boxes. Gather up all the small scraps of wrapping paper Matt knows are still littering his living room floor - he can hear their slight flutter in shifting currents of air. Smell them, too, over-saturated with dye.

Put the soft new scarf Foggy gave him away in his top dresser drawer. The hefty oversized tea mug - “for mornings when you need a gallon to get you going, Matty” - up in a kitchen cabinet, and the jar of pricey orange blossom honey away with it. 

It wouldn't take long.

What would it change?

“You want me to leave? Get my suitcase off your bedroom floor? Take my towel with me?”

Time was a funny thing. Two years ago, Matt might not have said _yes_ , but he would've found words that meant the exact same thing, and Foggy - Foggy would've gone, taking all the warmth in the room with him. A year ago, Matt’s words might have been much the same, but Foggy would've stayed, stubborn and prickly as a barnacle clinging to the hull of a thrashing ship.

Tonight, Matt says, “No.”

“Well, good. Because we had an agreement, and it hasn't been twenty-four hours since your last dizzy spell yet -” Something must cross Matt's face, because Foggy amends, “It hasn't even been ten minutes, has it.”

Foggy’s worry is kindled and re-kindled in moments when Matt braces himself against a countertop, or sits down suddenly, but as far as Matt goes, what creeps cold in his stomach is the realization that that he’s crumpling that bow in his _left_ hand - that once again, he’s chosen it subconsciously over his right, because no matter how many times his mind says that elbow and hand are back to full functionality, his body doesn’t seem to want to listen.

“If you want to clean up, we’ll clean up,” Foggy says, more gently. “You wanna hit things, we’ll go down to the gym, but be warned, Matthew. You get to work out exactly as hard as I work out and no harder, and I’m feeling preeetty sluggish tonight, I gotta say.”

Despite himself, Matt quirks his eyebrows. “Are you saying you need motivation? Because I can do motivation.”

“Yes, you like a challenge, trust me, I'm aware.” Foggy takes a breath. “Another option, and cards on the table, this one's my favorite: we could make cocoa, and you could join me on the couch. Keep this slug company.”

“What if I want beer?” Matt says, like he's trying to negotiate terms, except he's doing a terrible job of it; his body's already dropping down next to Foggy on the couch.

It’s a nice place to be. Beside Foggy.

“Head injuries don't get beer,” Foggy says. “Chocolate’s good for them, though. Lots of brain-healing properties. Matt. Can I see that bow for a second?”

Unfurling his fingers - if the bow was on the crushed side before, it’s flattened now - Matt hands it over. “You sure WebMD isn't leading you astray?” 

“It wouldn’t dare.” There are crinkling sounds as Foggy fiddles with the bow, popping its starburst points back into shape. “I thought you would be gracious enough to tell me I'm not a slug,” Foggy says, “and then I could say ‘Aha!’ and trap you in your own logic. But you just have to be difficult, don't you, Murdock?”

“You are neither figuratively nor literally a slug,” Matt says immediately, “and I am neither figuratively nor literally trapped by that statement.”

He isn't. Foggy is Foggy and Matt is Matt, and what's true for one isn't necessarily true for the other. Never has been.

“A prickly asshole, though, you’re definitely that,” Foggy mutters. His pulse is picking up, and his breath is growing uneven; Matt’s is, too, listening. Waiting for whatever it is Foggy really wants to say. 

“This might go over better if we’d had a few,” Foggy finally says, “but I'm gonna do it anyway, and you're gonna remember who got thrown out of a window and enforced sobriety on us, and keep your cactus faces to yourself when I do this -”

 _This_ is placing the bow very carefully on the crown of Matt's head.

“Bows are for gifts,” Foggy says quietly. “And it doesn't matter what you've done or haven't done this week, or how many people you've helped or haven't helped. There's a gift sitting next to me right now. Got it?”

Foggy's heartbeat is steady and incontrovertible as a metronome. Matt can't nod, because the bow might slip off, and it - Foggy's so sure it should stay where it is. He can't speak, his throat doesn't want to work, but Matt keeps at it, because while he has no idea what his cactus face actually _is_ , odds feel really good he's making it. It takes a while, but eventually Matt comes out with a, “Yes.”

“Good answer. You, sir, get cocoa. Want it in your new mug?”

“Yeah. Foggy -” 

Matt sorts through the leaning tower of gift boxes until he finds another bow. A bigger one, because - _because_. Foggy’s already standing, ready to head for Matt's kitchen, so Matt stands too, ignoring the sharp rush of blood to his head that as he does. “There,” he says, nestling the bow in Foggy's hair. “And trust me, if you even think about taking it off, I'll know.”

“Geez, that's the sweetest threat I've ever heard,” Foggy says, snorting, but his cheeks bloom into warmth, twin spots of heat that somehow warm Matt too.

Foggy begins to hum as he walks into the kitchen. It's a tune Matt doesn't really know, but not a note feels out of place.


	11. Isle (Matt/Claire, morning after)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "morning after."

It must be a cloudy day. The light that slips in through Matt’s windows is shaded and cool, filtered yellow and green, but even without checking a clock Claire knows it must be late morning, if not early afternoon; her body feels rested and loose from tip to toe, and when she breathes deep and stretches, silk shifting over her and with her, it’s like she’s a nymph, at home in the sea.

There’s bacon cooking, and coffee brewing.

It’s amazing what seven hours’ solid sleep and the knowledge that the foundations of a new day - food, caffeine - are already taken care of can do for a person. Flights of descriptive fancy are just the start. Claire considers slipping into the kitchen to find the sources of the good smells reaching her nose, but decides against it. Good things come to those who wait, and she’s in the mood to let them come to her.

By the time Matt pads in with a breakfast tray in his hands, Claire’s sitting up in bed with two pillows propped behind her back. She’d let her eyes fall back closed, _listening_ \- she caught the hiss of steam when the coffee maker stopped gurgling, and the sharp click when Matt switched the knob of the stove to “off,” and the tread of his sock feet as they drew close to the open bedroom door. When she opens them again, Claire feels a smile burst across her face, and doesn’t pause for a second to examine how much of it is for the sight of Matt, sleep-rumpled and relaxed, and how much of it is for the offering he’s brought.

“Morning,” he says, kissing her forehead after settling the tray carefully over her lap. 

“Mm.” A heap of fluffy scrambled eggs, two thick-cut strips of bacon, and a golden waffle, cut into four wedges, one nestled at each corner of the plate. Two ramekins, one filled with syrup ad another with chocolate sauce, are arranged neatly to the left, and to the left is the true star of the show: a hefty mug of coffee, and the cream and sugar Claire needs to make it perfect.

She knows it's gonna be good by the scent alone, but the first sip has her searching for bigger, better adjectives, and Matt's slow smile is so self-satisfied that she knows he didn't miss her contented sigh.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, angling her chin up, and whether he catches the gesture or just her tone, he's quick to lean in from his perch on the edge of the bed to accept a kiss. “We both know you know what I like,” Claire adds, because it's true and he’s earned it, particularly on the heels of last night, and in the light of this morning.

Last night she'd left work at three, and made it to his place not long after - the beauty of deserted streets. He'd been in for the night long enough to be out of the suit and out of the shower, and warned up some soup for them while she took her own. 

Neither one had been in the mood to talk about their evenings, the close calls, the people hurt, the people saved. So Matt had talked about his day - Foggy had taken up singing the classics while working on their latest case, and by “the classics” he meant “90s TV theme songs,” and since getting caught at it by their actual client hadn't been enough to slow him down, Matt doubted anything ever would.

There were still nights when Claire came in to find herself facing a reprise of the job that paid her bills, but Matt knew how she felt about that, and it was happening less and less often. She doubted Matt was taking better care because he’d suddenly decided avoiding little things like pain or organ damage was intrinsically worthwhile, but hey. No chasing gift horses away.

They'd both been a little restless still, a little keyed up after their long nights, and in the bedroom they'd kissed and rocked together lazily, keeping it sweet and slow, their rhythm gentle and insistent as waves lapping against the shore of a lake. Afterwards, Claire's heavy limbs and quieting heart had helped her - and most likely Matt, he'd admitted before to using her heartbeat as a lullaby - off to an easy sleep.

If the coffee was worth a contented sigh, the bacon is worthy of something closer to a groan. Matt’s lips curve up, and he quirks a brow. “Starting to wonder if I should be jealous.”

Claire waits till she’s fully savored the bite to reply. “Hey, you brought this bacon into our relationship. This is all on you.”

“Clearly, I underestimated the threat.”

“Sloppy of you,” Claire agrees, pausing for another sip of rich coffee. She doesn't know where Matt got it, but like the bacon, it definitely didn't come from the budget grocery down the block. “Go on, make your own plate already, martyr boy.”

She has to laugh at how quickly Matt hops up. Like his sense of self-preservation, Matt’s hedonistic streak seems to come to the surface most often when it’s for someone else’s benefit. He’d be better off keeping his ribs intact or buying the fancy bacon every now and then just for his own damn sake rather than hers, but right now Claire’s certainly not complaining about the results. And she hasn’t even tried the waffles with the chocolate yet.

On his return, Matt pauses in the doorway. “Maybe I should've had my bacon in the kitchen,” he says. “Minimized the risk.”

“Get back in this bed, and bring your breakfast with you.” Claire pats the mattress next to her, and Matt hustles to comply, settling down so that he’s warm right up against her side.

She still isn’t really sure what time it is, but for now Claire can’t find it in herself to care. This morning, this afternoon, this _moment_ is theirs: their island in the channel, their sheltered cove, where for a while the world can pass them by.


	12. Breakfast Knows No Hour (Matt & Foggy, law school, weekend do-over)

“This is not how weekends are meant to be spent. This is not what weekends are for,” Foggy half-whispers, half-moans. Matt isn’t meant to hear it - he’s got his earbuds in - but then Foggy slams his textbook closed and tosses it away from him. It lands on the mattress with a soft whumph, and Matt now has everything he needs to pop out his headphones and say, “Hey. Time for a break?”

“I don’t want a break, I want a do-over on my weekend,” Foggy says. It’s followed immediately by, “Hey, no, buddy, don’t let me wreck your groove! I can moan discreetly,” and the sound of him flopping face-first into his pillow and beginning to do just that.

Matt closes his laptop with a definitive click. He feels for his watch, but asks, “What time is it?” just to encourage Foggy to lift his head up, and maybe suffocate himself a little less.

“Hmm… almost six?”

“Perfect.” On his feet, Matt rolls his stiff shoulders back, relishing the stretch - his body’s trying to tell him that Foggy’s right. They’ve been at this too long. “All the best weekends start with brunch, isn’t that what you always say? Come on. Those pancakes with the walnuts and whipped cream on top. You know you want them.”

“Um, you know I meant six at night, right? Not in the morning?”

“Yeah. Breakfast knows no hour. You say that too, don’t you?”

“We both know I say a lot of things,” Foggy replies, but he’s sitting up now, feet on the floor - temptation is winning. “Okay, but you’re aware that it’s Sunday, not Saturday? Fourteen hours till the exam? Don’t get me wrong, pancakes sound great, I just gotta be sure you haven’t studied yourself into some alternate plane of reality where you think you have more time left than you actually do.”

Matt laughs. “Nah, I know what day it is. Seriously, Foggy, I’m fine. I think we know this stuff as well as we’re going to, at this point -” Or Foggy does, at least; Matt’s been listening to him recite case law under his breath for over an hour now. He may be too anxious to realize it, but he has this down cold - “and you’re right. We deserve a weekend. Pancakes?”

“Hell yeah,” Foggy says, and springs off the bed to find his shoes.

~

The simple act of stepping off-campus works a fair bit of magic, and the carbs and dairy that follow only strengthen the spell. By the time Foggy’s demolished his short stack and is chasing the last bits of pancake and syrup around his plate, light has crept back into his voice again. Matt soaks up every drop like a snake basking in the sun.

(If ever there was an incantation made to work on Matt, it would be this: the sound of Foggy, happy.)

Foggy reads to Matt off and on, tidbits from some free community newspaper he found lying in their booth. Stores opening, stores closing. A rooftop gardening project. The MVP’s of ballpark snacks. A barbecue festival in Brooklyn next weekend.

He comes back to this one twice, reading every line of the ad. The event will boast two hundred different kinds of sauce, apparently, many of them secret family recipes. “Two hundred, Matt,” Foggy says, enchanted.

“I’d like to see you manage all two hundred,” Matt says. “I bet I’m carrying you home after thirty-five. Forty, tops.”

“Hey, I have big dreams! But don’t worry, man. We’re not going. That’s way too much subway for you. It’s probably too much subway for me. We’ll just have to find something sauce-y and hedonistic to do around here.”

“We’ll see,” Matt says. It means: I’ll see you on a train to Brooklyn next Saturday afternoon. It means: you probably think we’re going back to the dorm to study some more after this, and I’ll definitely do that before bed, assuming I sleep it at all, but first? I know the next step to a great weekend is claiming a square of grass on the lawn to lounge on like over-full beached whales, so we’re gonna do that too, and you’ll tell me about the sunset.

It means: keep dreaming those big dreams. Of doing good work, and having a good time. Of being thoughtful, of being kind.

(And maybe let me lie in your garden while you do it, and drink in the sun.)


	13. Protective Custody (Matt/Foggy, Defenders spoilers)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny Defenders missing scene, written for vera-invenire's prompt in a three sentence fic meme (although it ran a little longer than that).

In the end, Foggy startled Matt into silence by catching his hand; it was jerking and twitching so much he was afraid Matt might actually do himself an injury. Accidentally Daredevil his _own_ ass.

“Hey,” he said, “hey. You don’t have to go for such a hard sell. I’m coming with you. I may not love whatever you’re getting into, but I definitely love living, so for this guy? Protective custody is where it’s _at_.”

Matt breathed out, a harsh grunt from the gut. He clenched Foggy’s hand, then dropped it and squeezed Foggy’s shoulder, his big palm fitting right over the spot where the bullet went in, landing with the precision of any of Daredevil’s punches.

“Thank you,” Matt said, dropping his forehead to Foggy’s shoulder, and wrapping his other arm around Foggy’s back, fingers digging into the jacket of Foggy’s suit. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered; even when Foggy could no longer hear a sound, by craning his neck he could see Matt’s lips still moving; thanking Foggy, or thanking his God, while his clutching, relentless, desperate hands spoke just as direct and true.

Foggy held on, and let Matt speak his piece; held on, and let his body whisper love.


	14. Senses Tell (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are bookend ficlets, sort of, written for a three sentence fic meme. (Both ended up slightly longer than that.)

She smelled him when she fought him, of course; what hunter doesn’t take in the odor of her prey? She heard his breath, rasping with exertion but still so, so strong, and felt the heat of him every time her fist struck home.

But it’s so different, here, in the place that she knows is his home. Where his scent burrows into her lungs, and the memory of his voice echoes from the rafters into every crevice of her heart. 

His pillow is cold beneath her cheek, but warmth lingers in her mind like a phantom fire. And when she leaves this place -

When she leaves, embers will remain.

::

He misses her heartbeat, although that’s nothing new.

He won’t make the mistake of assuming a soul requires a heartbeat, or that a heartbeat is some marker of a soul, no matter how many others might. Life after death: why should a human mind be capable of defining it?

And why should he make time for logical fallacies?

Elektra’s heartbeat might be lost, but her breath and her voice sing in his ears, and her body moves like a melody he was born to sing along.


	15. This Life, and the One Before (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a prompt of "I've been in love with you my entire life." Post-Defenders.

He wakes to the glide of her fingertips, smoothing along his cheek and under his chin. He’d know them for Elektra’s fingertips, even without a single other clue ( _her heat, her smell, her weight on the bed. The whispering fall of her hair, the sound of her breath_ ), because he knows her hands: all the places they are rough, all the places they are smooth.

“Hi,” Matt whispers. His throat is still rough and dry with dust, even though she feeds him ice cubes and slow sips of water regularly. His lips are still harshly cracked, but she tends to those too, smoothing honey-flavored balm over them every few hours.

“Hi yourself,” Elektra says, touching a finger lightly to his nose. “Your nurse is here. He requested you be awake.”

“That’s because you terrify him.” Matt shifts, trying to prop himself higher in the bed, but Elektra closes a hand over his shoulder, and he relaxes into it, giving in.

“He has nothing to fear, as long as he remembers he’s handling something extremely precious.” Elektra doesn’t turn away from him, but this last is directed over her shoulder none the less, at the young man with the rabbit-quick heartbeat who’s just entered the room.

“Did she say you’d die if I died?” Matt can’t project very loudly, but the man clearly hears him, flinching hard enough to rattle his medical bag. “Because that’s not going to happen.”

Pressing her lips to Matt’s forehead, Elektra rises. “He’s being well-compensated, believe me. What’s life without a little risk?”

Matt lets it go, after that. He’s too busy having his temperature taken, his blood pressure checked, his bandages changed. Despite his racing pulse, the nurse’s hands are steady and sure. Elektra stands watch over it all.

He lets his senses drift, taking him through the glass and steel of Elektra’s penthouse to the city outside. His city, but not _only_ his, and there’s a peace in that knowledge, and a trust in New York’s other protectors, that’s probably doing as much for his body as all the sutures and antibiotics.

He’s loved the city his entire life. He’s loved Elektra his entire life, too. This life, and the one before it, too; they’ve had so many lives together, so many stops and starts, that every breath they draw together in the same room feels like an undeserved blessing, a gift from above.

He’ll get back out there again, when his body’s a little less broken. His city, his friends - he’ll be with them again, too. But for now, he and Elektra have their snowglobe world, this time held suspended and safe high on a mantelpiece, and when Matt reaches out a hand, grasping, she closes her fingers over his at once.

He’s home.


	16. On the Job (Matt/Elektra professional thief AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for mattelektraweek on tumblr, and the prompt of "favorite episode"... a snippet of a professional thief AU inspired by "Regrets Only".

“You have your tools?”

In answer, Matt reaches into a discreet inner pocket of his tux, pulls out a slim leather case, and flips it open so that Elektra can see them all neatly aligned: his favorite lock picks, tension tools, and bump keys, ready for action.

“And your gloves?”

For these, Matt reaches into a trouser pocket. A deep burgundy red in color (he’s been assured), they’re made from supple, buttery leather, are extremely close-fitting, and as near as he can possibly come to a second skin.

He hates them. Hates every stifled, suffocated moment of wearing them. Still, he’s not so foolish as to go out cracking safes without them.

After tucking the gloves away, Matt skims his fingers up the bare line of Elektra’s throat, nestles his palm against her cheek, and glides his fingertips into her sleek hair, soaking up touch while he can. She turns her head slightly, pressing a kiss to his palm, and Matt breathes out a sigh, resting his forehead against hers.

“You act as if I make a habit of going out on jobs unprepared,” he says quietly.

“Not a habit,” Elektra says, “but some nights you’re more addicted to risk than interested in results.”

“Yeah?” She tips her head back, allowing him to drag the flat of his palm down the column of her throat, all the way to the silky neckline over her evening gown. “Well. Takes one to know one.”

“Must you sound like a child,” she says, but Matt’s fingers find the corner of her mouth, and he knows just how broadly she’s smiling. And he’s smiling, too, because of how true it all is: it _does_ take one to know one, and they know each other like no one else ever has.

She smooths her fingers over his forehead then, tracing lines from end to end. “What about reservations? Second guesses? Are you bringing any of those as well?”

“Not tonight.” Matt shakes his head. “If the asshole didn’t want us to steal the six million dollar necklace he's auctioning off to fund his trafficking empire, he probably shouldn’t have invited us to his party.”

“No, he certainly shouldn’t have,” Elektra agrees, and dips in for a kiss.

When he draws back, Matt cups Elektra’s neck, thumbing her pulse. “We’ll have to dispose of it, of course. Through the usual channels. That money can do a lot of good.”

“Of course.”

“It’s not like you could ever wear it in public anyway,” he continues. “That would be -”

“Insanity,” Elektra says smoothly, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a tissue, removing stray lipstick smears (probably) and shutting him up (definitely). “An unimaginable risk.” Tissue discarded, she trails her fingers down his arm and pulls lightly at his hand. “Come along, Matthew. Our car will be waiting.”

Matt perches his glasses on his nose, grabs his folded cane, and hopes to God the necklace turns out to be the most hideous thing Elektra’s ever seen.


	17. Got You Something (Matt/Elektra, post-Defenders)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for mattelektraweek at tumblr.

“I got you something.”

Matthew joins her on his couch, placing a box on the coffee table before her. He walks easily now, so many months after the sky fell on him, but something in his back must still trouble him, because a wince mars his expression as he sits.

Elektra would burn out the source of his trouble if she could. For now, she lets the box claim her attention. It’s nondescript: a slim black rectangle, unwrapped and unadorned. There are two silver hinges on one side, and two latches on the other.

He always knows how to intrigue her.

Watching his face, she pops the latches one by one. His head is cocked towards her; he very much wants her to like this, she thinks, and he very much wants to hear the moment her anticipation turns to delight.

It has to be easy. The moment Elektra lays eyes on the pair of sai, her heart sings.

Even in the soft light of Matthew’s apartment, the metal gleams. She lifts one, pleased by its weight; the handle is wrapped with a supple black leather cord, and it spins beautifully in her hand, grip shifting for a block, then a strike. The shaft is nicely faceted, the tip pointed, and the knuckle end solid and sturdy, ready to add power to any blow. Testing the weapon against her forearm, she finds it perfect. The length could not be better. It was made for her.

“So what do you think,” he prompts, as if he must truly hear her words to know.

Perhaps that’s indeed the case. They are gorgeous weapons, precisely what she would have chosen had she gone to a master weapons maker and commissioned them herself. But they are gifts, and gifts always come with a price.

“I think,” Elektra says, “you’re hoping I’ll think of you when I wield these, and that perhaps it will stay my hand.”

He grins, a flash of teeth. “Would you blame me for that? But Elektra - hopes and expectations, those are two different things. The sai are yours. No strings. Yours.”

“I see.” She lifts the other blade; the balance is divine. “You’re not worried about the blood I spill staining your hands?”

There's moment of quiet. Matthew dips his head, and when he finally speaks, she knows he’s speaking truth. “No, because it’s already there. And the consequences of _my_ decisions - they’re on yours. But that’s all right, because that’s - that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“Our lives are each other’s,” she says, slipping the weapons back into their box, reaching for Matthew, cupping a palm to the nape of his neck, using the other to cradle his skull.

“Yes,” he whispers, and his kiss is another gift: one that cuts her deep, every time.


End file.
